by H A CULLEY
‘Once you have crossed the river via the ford over there and deployed sentries to guard against surprise by the Turks then you may go down to the river by units in turn. I am ashamed of your lack of self-restraint this afternoon and if it is ever repeated I will hang one man in ten just to make sure you understand the message.’
Many of his men hadn’t managed to get near the water and still had empty water skins so there was a concerted rush for the ford. When Frederick Barbarossa arrived leading the main body he found the ford crammed with men with thousands more waiting impatiently to cross. To make matters worse the piquet on the far bank were standing around instead of taking up a proper defensive position.
‘Who is in charge over there? Frederick demanded to know.
But before Leopold could reply the emperor carried on:
‘Never mind. I’ll go over myself and sort them out. You stay here and get the crossing over the ford properly organised.’
With that Barbarossa urged his horse into the river.
‘Sire, the river is too deep to cross safely except at the ford,’ Leopold cried out in warning.
‘Nonsense, my destrier has been swimming across rivers for years.’
Leopold watched helplessly as the emperor, still dressed in chain mail, reached the point where his horse started to swim. Unfortunately the flow in the middle of the river at that point was quite strong and the horse was swept away downstream. The destrier’s attempts to swim got more and more frantic as it kept sinking under the surface with the weight of the man in full armour on its back. Eventually it succeeded in dislodging the man but it still continued to struggle to stay afloat. Frederick Barbarossa, ruler of an empire that stretched from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, sank to the bottom like a stone. It took them a day to recover his body and it was then placed in a barrel of vinegar to preserve it until it could be buried in Christian lands. His drowned horse was left to rot on the bank of the river several miles downstream, where it had come to rest.
The army was a disparate mass of lords and their men from various states in Germany and Italy. The glue that bound them together had been Barbarossa and the army panicked at finding itself thousands of miles from home without him. His grandson, Frederick, and Duke Leopold did their best to hold the army together but almost immediately contingents deserted and started to make their own way home. Split up and dispirited as they were, they were easy prey for the Turks, Armenians and even Byzantines that hunted them down. Few made it back to Europe safely.
Frederick and Leopold pressed on with their five thousand Swabians and Austrians and Prince Geza’s two thousand Hungarians. Two weeks later they arrived at the port of Saint Simeon at the mouth of the Orontes River and from there they made their way to Antioch; there the late emperor was given a royal funeral.
In the autumn of 1190 the much depleted army arrived at the siege of Acre. However, fate had not finished heaping misfortune on them yet and in January 1191 Duke Frederick succumbed to one of the many diseases that plagued the besiegers’ camp from time to time. Geza had left with his Hungarians after the funeral in Antioch and so Duke Leopold of Austria found himself as the leader of the remnants of Barbarossa’s men; something that was to have dire consequences in due course.
Chapter Five – The Siege of Acre – June 1191
When King Richard arrived at Acre the city had been under siege for two years. He had crossed from Cyprus to Tyre on 6th June but Conrad of Montferrat, instead of welcoming him as a saviour who had come to the aid of the hard-pressed Christian states of the Holy Land, had closed the gates on him. Richard was incensed and sent his herald forward to demand entry to the town.
‘Tell Richard of England that if he denies Guy de Lusignan’s claim to the throne of Jerusalem and acknowledges me as the true king in right of my wife, Queen Isabella, then I will welcome him with open arms.’
‘Tell him to go to hell,’ was Richard’s succinct response, which the herald wisely decided not to relay to Conrad. The army disembarked and spent the night on the beach.
The next day the fleet sailed on south towards Acre and encountered a large transport ship called a buss with a high deck and three tall masts. Initially the captain denied that he was bound for Acre, but it seemed obvious to Richard that he was waiting for darkness in order to run the blockade into the harbour, which was still held by the Moslems. The king ordered two of his galleys to run alongside the buss and board her; a difficult task owing to the high sides of the ship compared to the much smaller galleys.
As the galleys neared the buss, its crew threw two large ewers onto the deck of each galley. The galleys immediately burst into flames where the pots had burst, splashing nearby men with the fiery liquid.
‘Greek fire!’ exclaimed Richard ‘I’d heard of it but never thought to see it. The absolute bastards!’ He beckoned the captain of his flagship to his side. ‘Hoist the order for the other ten galleys to ram her and sink her.’
The galleys were equipped with an iron prow under the water and head-on to the buss they presented a much narrower target for the pitchers of Greek fire. In the event the crew didn’t try and defend the buss, but started to abandon ship in a panic as the line of galleys approached. As they were miles from shore, even those who could swim were doomed to drown.
The galleys continued their advance with the drums beating a quickening pace to the rowers. With a splintering crash the irons prows simultaneously struck the buss. The impact pushed the ship several yards sideways. The rowers had braced themselves for the collision and the rest of those on board threw their arms around the mast, or anything else to hand. Even so the sudden loss of forward momentum threw some off their feet and quite a few were injured. When the galleys backed water away from the buss, the sea poured into the gaping holes in its side just below the waterline. Within fifteen minutes it had keeled over, before eventually capsizing and sinking below the waves, carrying its cargo of Greek fire to the bottom.
As Richard sailed away one of his barons remonstrated with him.
‘Sire, surely you will rescue those men in the water, if only to sell them as slaves?’
‘Had they succeeded in landing their cargo for the defenders of Acre can you imagine the dreadful effect that fiendish substance would have on our men as they fired it at us from mangonels, or poured it down on us during an assault? Don’t preach morality at me when you don’t know what you are talking about. No fate is too dire for them.’ He stared the baron in the eyes until the man dropped his gaze to the deck.
‘Forgive me, sire. I didn’t think.’
‘Perhaps next time you will do so before you prattle at me.’
~#~
Saladin heard of Richard’s arrival and of the loss of the buss with dismay. Not only was the Greek fire a rare and expensive substance that it had taken him some time to acquire, but there had been seven hundred of his best soldiers on board, who were intended to stiffen the defenders in Acre.
The leader of the Saracens was camped on top of Jebel el Kharruba some fifteen miles to the south east of Acre. From here he could repulse any attack by the crusaders, but he wasn’t strong enough to go on the offensive and relieve the city. But his presence did mean that the crusaders had to guard against attack whilst, at the same time, trying to assault the high walls of Acre. Consequently, the besieging army had to build two ramparts and ditches: one facing the city in case of a sally and one facing the other way in case of an attack by Saladin.
The city was protected on the landward side by two rows of double walls with towers along their length from which enfilade fire could be directed at any assault on the wall. The seaward side was dominated by the impressive Tower of Flies erected on a small island in the middle of the outer harbour. A similarly large bastion, called the Accursed Tower, protected the point where the western and northern walls met. This was the weak point in the defences of the city and so it was the most strongly defended.
When King Richard arrived he took one look at the va
st crusader army camped around Acre and tactlessly said to Philip Augustus and Henry, Count of Champagne – who had commanded the army before Philip’s arrival - that he failed to understand why so vast a host had failed to capture the city before now.
Richard had brought a considerable number of mangonels, pre-fabricated siege towers and, most importantly, several trebuchets. These used a counterweight to fling projectiles weighing three hundred and fifty pounds into the middle of Acre. He had also brought cats. These were essentially a wheeled roof, strongly reinforced, which could be pushed forward against a wall. Soldiers could then dig down to undermine the wall, causing it to collapse, safe from arrows, rocks and any other projectiles.
Whilst the mangonels battered the walls and the cats were used to undermine them, the trebuchets rained huge rocks down inside the city, destroying buildings and eventually turning the place into a city of ruins.
Life inside the city must have been grim in the extreme. The population had been starving for some time, their numbers dwindling whilst those of the attacking army grew week by week. The Moslems had become dejected and lost hope of relief.
Conditions weren’t that much better in the crusaders’ lines. Food was in short supply, though Richard’s arrival with fresh produce from Cyprus had helped, and disease was rife. Within a week of arrival, King Richard went down with scurvy due to lack of vitamin C. The euphoria that had greeted his arrival had been replaced by dismay once news of his illness spread. Richard knew that word would have reached Saladin and he feared that the Saracens might take advantage and launch an attack. He therefore sent out regular patrols to keep an eye on the enemy camp.
On the first day the patrol returned to report that half an hour before dusk they had seen a cloud of dust at some distance, which indicated that a sizeable force was approaching from the direction of Damascus. Richard immediately sent for Richard de Cuille and told him to take a small patrol along the Damascus road to find out more.
At dawn the next day, Richard, Miles, their squires and six sergeants mounted ready to leave when Waldo and Gervaise rode over to join them.
‘I was leading yesterday’s patrol and the king thought it would be helpful if I came with you to indicate where we had seen the dust cloud.’
Richard knew full well that it was almost definitely Waldo who had murdered Robert of Locksley, the one-time outlaw and lord of Richard’s manor of Byrness. Whilst he heartily condemned what Waldo had done he could at least understand his motive. If Robert had deliberately killed his father, he too would want revenge. Now of course Miles, as Robert’s son, felt just as Waldo had done. Miles’ hand had instinctively gone to his sword hilt when Waldo had appeared, something that Waldo’s sharp eyes hadn’t missed. If Waldo hadn’t known that Miles was Robert of Locksley’s son, he must have guessed his identity by now.
Richard turned his horse and, with Waldo riding by his side, they rode out of the camp towards the Damascus road. There was no sign of a dust cloud as they crossed the coastal plain and headed into the low foothills. No doubt the Saracens hadn’t yet broken camp. Waldo said that the dust cloud came from a point quite a way to the north-east. As they entered the hills Richard sent sergeants out in pairs to ride ahead of him on each flank to give warning if they saw enemy scouts.
They advanced at a slow walk and after another fifteen minutes they saw tendrils of dust starting to rise into the air a few miles in front of them. The Saracens were on the move again. The patrol rode off the main road and into the hills to the west, keeping the road in view below them as much as possible. Just as the full power of the morning sun began to hit them, the day started to grow darker again. Richard was puzzled until he looked up at the sky and briefly saw that the sun looked as if someone had taken a great bite out of it before he had to look away again. Even so he saw spots in front of his eyes for several minutes before they faded.
The frightened crusaders dismounted and took cover in the rocks, though they couldn’t have explained why. The dark continued to increase until there was just a black hole surrounded by a fiery ring where the sun should have been. By now the whole patrol was convinced that the end of the world had arrived and they were praying more fervently than they ever done in their lives. It was if night had returned and then, gradually, the light returned. They praised God for answering their prayers; so intent were they on this that they failed to keep a proper watch.
As the patrol rode out of the rocks where they had hidden, Richard suddenly realised that there were groups of mounted Saracens above them and in front of them. He turned his horse downhill, away from the enemy, and yelling for the others to follow him he spurred his destrier to go as fast as he dared over the rocky terrain. He was conscious of the sound of the others behind him and once he had reached the road he risked a look behind him. The three squires and five of the serjeants were there being chased by half a dozen Saracens two hundred yards behind them but there was no sign of the sixth or of Waldo or Miles. Richard pulled his horse to a halt and turned to face his pursuers.
‘Go back to the camp and get help’ he yelled at the squires, then he turned to the serjeants. ‘Form a wedge and follow me.’
~#~
Humphrey of Toron was not a strong character but he knew how to hold a grudge. He hadn’t forgiven Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, for taking his wife from him. When Humphrey had tried to hold out against the political pressure on him to agree to an annulment, Guy of Senlis challenged him to trial by combat. Guy, Count of Senlis in Picardy, had a reputation as a tournament champion and Humphrey knew that he would lose against him. No doubt Senlis had been bribed by Conrad to challenge him but he decided to refuse, despite the affront to his honour this entailed.
Resentment festered inside him until he found a way to avenge himself. Humphrey enjoyed sex with men as well as women but homosexual acts were strongly forbidden by the Church. He was only too aware that his liaisons would further denigrate his already poor reputation if they became common knowledge, so he resorted to finding men to take to bed amongst the lower echelons. This eventually brought him into contact with a man who had connections in the Jebel Bahra area of northern Syria, home of the Nizari Ismailis, otherwise known as the Assassins.
Humphrey slipped into one of the large tents that served the crusader army at Acre as a tavern. He was dressed in a plain over tunic and black cloak so he didn’t attract notice amongst the serjeants and men-at-arms who frequented the place. He was looking for a Templar serjeant but there were numerous men wearing the brown surcoat with a red cross. Then one sitting on his own in a corner caught his eye and nodded imperceptibly.
‘Helmut said you could help with a task I have for the…’ Humphrey started to say before the Templar cut across him.
‘No names here,’ he warned. ‘I am well aware of what you want. The only things we needed to discuss are the target and the means of payment.’
‘And the amount,’ Humphrey added.
‘No, you will be told that once we know the name of the target; it depends on the difficulty and the risk.’
‘I see. The target is…’ But the man held up his hand and pushed a grabby scrap of parchment and a stick of charcoal across the table.
‘Write it down here.’ Humphrey paused for a second then drew a deep breath. Conrad of Montferrat he scrawled with the charcoal stick, folded the scrap of parchment and pushed it back across the rough-hewn table.
‘Good. Meet me here at the same time next week and bring a hundred marks with you as a down payment. I will let you know what the second payment is to be. That will be payable immediately the deed is done or my friends will come looking for you.’
The man picked up the scrap of parchment and left the tent.
Humphrey returned a week later to find a different man dressed as a Capuchin friar sitting at the same table. Again the man caught Humphrey’s eye and nodded faintly.
‘Where is the man I met last week?’ Humphrey wanted to know but the friar ignored his question.
Humphrey, who was expecting the second payment to be the same as the first was horrified.
‘I don’t have that sort of money available. Give me back what I have paid you and we’ll forget all about it.’
‘Didn’t my friend explain what would happen if you defaulted? You have entered into a binding contract and you can’t change your mind; not if you want to keep your head on your shoulders that is. We’ll be in touch.’
Humphrey was left wondering how on earth he was going to find a sum equivalent to three years’ income from his three baronies. He only chance might be to borrow it from his mother, Stephanie of Milly, the widow of Raynard of Châtillon, Prince of Antioch, but they were not close. Nor could he explain to her what he wanted the money for.
~#~
Richard de Cuille thundered towards the six Saracens with one serjeant riding with him knee to knee and the other four on the flanks. Two of the enemy were horse archers and let fly at them as they closed. One arrow hit Richard’s shield with a thunk whilst the other caught the serjeant on his left in the throat. He toppled from his horse and the two on the outside of him closed in as the fallen man’s horse dropped back.
Richard hadn’t brought his lance. It was cumbersome and it was normally carried by his squire until he needed it. He was therefore armed with his sword whilst the serjeants carried the fearsome horseman’s axe: a four foot long weapon with an axe head and two long spikes, one pointing upwards and one opposite the axe head.
As they rode into the Saracens the serjeant on his left ducked under a swinging sword and thrust the spike of the axe into his opponent’s chest. On his other side the man swung the axe down, cleaving an Arab stallion’s head in two. Its rider jumped clear as his horse collapsed but, by the time he had regained his feet, the crusaders were past him. The Saracen in front of Richard had aimed his spear at him but Richard caught the point on his shield and brought his sword round aiming at the man’s neck. He tried to deflect Richard’s sword with his round shield but the force of blow batted it aside and it chopped into the side of the chainmail hanging down from his helmet. The links parted as the sword drove on into his ear and stopped halfway through his brain.